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Letter: Vote with intelligence

by Letters to the editor on Friday December 07 2018

To The Editor:

I'm pleased, even uplifted, at bad news from Alberta's tar-sands industry; their product is falling in market value. The purchase of TransMountain by Trudeau for $4.5 billion has not salvaged this filthy industry. It must suffer a quick death for the sake of fighting climate change.

Tough luck, Canadian capitalists and your economics, we will not keep selling raw resources when it so clearly ruins our global habitat. Tough luck, Mr. Prime Minister, for your nonsense-slogan about Liberal wisdom and how you know how to balance economics and ecology.

We do not believe your strategy, and we do not choose to sacrifice climate justice on the altar of profit, tax-base, and jobs.

Alberta's bad news is merely bad for capitalist operations. Canadians can feel very good that our politics aren't going down the toilet, not following the path of the USA, Brazil, the Philippines, Russia, China, or most of the so-called developing sector of the globe. BRICS? Washing away.

Now, if only we'd ban Canadian arms exports to other lands, and quit the aggressive NATO alliance, we could celebrate national political progress. More UN aid. No more Afghanistan-type mistakes.

BC might set an example of improvement for the provinces of Canada, by choosing to adopt proportional representation. For sure, that system is not a universal response to all political challenges, but there is absolutely no question it stops “disruptor” leaders [Steve Bannon's idols] in their obnoxious tracks. Ontarians will envy us; we despair for their self-harming leadership selection. Ford is, so far, the most Trumpian leader here. Sadly, horrid consequences lie ahead for Ontario.

One thing Canadians might still accomplish soon, as another step to better politics, is electing a federal government finely-balanced among liberal, conservative, social-democratic, and green policy values, in 2019. Very improbable, but it might happen if we each vote for the party we really want, not the party least-worst of the two greatest powers, Trudeau and Scheer.

While Alberta again ignorantly chooses Conservatives (provincially and federally), the rest of us might vote with intelligence.